The Diner – Kensal Rise & Camden

I must admit, I love The Diner restaurant chain that has branches in Soho, Camden, Islington and Kensal Rise. I love the whole concept of easygoing American food and this eatery group offers exactly that and more. I’ve been to two of their branches, one in Camden and one in Kensal Rise which is my local. This restaurant is a busy one, very popular with families as they provide simple food that kids love and they provide activity packages and board games – a nice little touch which just goes well with the laid-back spirit of the place. 

What I love about The Diner is exactly that – the laidback vibe of the place and the simplicity of the food. The menu includes a variety of burgers, hot dogs and sandwiches with a twist. The boyfriend and I tried plenty of stuff from the menu and we loved all of them.

The Diner’s chefs use excellent quality beef which just makes the burgers damn tasty with huge juicy flavoursome meat patties in the middle and crispy buns in the outside. All of the burgers come with the usual garnish of salad, gherkins, tomato and onion ring. However, serving quality burgers should be fairly evident in place that focuses on American cuisine that counts the burger as its signature dish.

It is well worth to be a bit adventurous and try some other dishes. Monte Christo sandwich was a brilliant found. It is variety of the French Croque Monsiuer with an exciting and very American twist. According to some internet sources it is a typical New York dish which is basically a fried ham and cheese sandwich but the way they serve it at The Diner is just something else. It comes with blueberry sauce and maple syrup, an excellent combo that is so brilliant the BF orders it every time we go to grab an American inspired bite. 

My personal favourite however is the beef chilli that can be ordered as a side dish, on a burger and as main course as Chilli Con Carne with cheese, sour cream and crackers. I have absolutely no idea what they do with the chilli around here that makes it so bloody good but I reckon it might come down to the beef again. It is hands down the best CCC I have ever had.

I could just go on and on about everything from the vast variety of beers – chilli beer with a whole chilli in the bottle or the banana bread beer, anyone? – to the tasty alcoholic milkshakes but ‘nuff said, you get the idea. The Diner’s branches across London are good places to chill out and eat something delicious and easygoing. Oh, and it’s relatively cheap too.

Gordon Ramsey’s York & Albany

First went to this restaurant about a year and I absolutely loved it. I met up with a friend of mine in Camden and after a few pints we ended up at Gordon Ramsey’s gastro pub. It made an excellent first impression – great surroundings, not uncomfortably posh but better than your average gastro-pub with an impressive menu and polite but not ‘in your face’ staff. The food was excellent, my mate and I shared the Côte de boeuf with a selection of garnish for two (it could have been the exact same dish that is on the menu right now for £48 for two) – what an amazing value. A year on I decided to take my boyfriend with me to the celeb-chefs Camden brunch again to see what’s new. We decided to go on the budget menu which here is called Early Supper and it is available every day between 6-7pm for £18/2 courses and £21/3 courses. 

We chose to have the full experience – 3 courses each. And how bloody fantastic they were. The BF had the smoked haddock and horseradish scotch egg with tartare sauce – absolutely delicious, it had nothing to do with your average and rather revolting scotch egg from a super market. What a brilliant combination of ingredients. My starter was the chicken liver foie gras, thick, crème mousse of liver pâté with a piquant chutney – I could honestly say it was divine and I don’t use that word often.  So far so good, we were excitedly sipping our house white – told you we were on a budget – when our mains arrived. 

He was having Roast salmon, chicory jam, savoy cabbage, baby turnips – it was nice, very tasty salmon indeed but I’m still convinced that my main was the number one dish that night. Parmesan gnocchi, field mushrooms cream, truffle butter sauce – even the sound of it makes me want to go on Toptable and hit the booking button again for tonight. No kidding, it was that good. The leading flavour in the dish was the truffle butter sauce – it complemented yet not overpowered the dish. The gnocchi had the parmesan flavour as promised and the field mushroom cream was something I just had to clear from my plate using the leftover bread – not a fine diner’s behaviour I must admit but what you gonna do? Leave it there? No chance. Screw elitist table manners when you’ve got such damn good food on your plate. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough of it I must say and I don’t usually eat too much but I could have had a bit more of that…Mainly because it was really good but portions were a bit on the small side. 

Desserts were good but as much as I love chocolate puddings the dark chocolate ganache proved to be a bit too…thich, bitter and dark chocolaty for my taste. It did come with caramelised bananas and honeycomb which was a nice sweet touch and some powder sprinkled on the dish that tasted suspiciously like ginger. BF went for the ricotta and lemon cheesecake which was a significantly better choice which I of course I was not willing to admit at the time.

I won’t bother with official ratings and things like that here, I think you get the idea anyway – it’s a brilliant place based in Camden, perfect starting point of Friday night.

Not another posh foodblog

Well, I love food, love eating out and love spending my hard earned cash on brilliant food. And I used to love reading posh restaurant reviews or opinions on a takaway...but I've got a problem. I don't like snob critics who share their personal family anecdotas in their writeups. I want to read about food, the quality of it, the surroundings, prices of meals, want to know about let downs and London's best kept secret places. I just wanted to know where to go if you want a good night out. I didn't find a blog that is low key enough so I started one. Here it goes...